Congress Must Keep Broadband Competition Alive

CONGRESS MUST KEEP BROADBAND COMPETITION ALIVE
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School]
[Commentary] The question of Internet “network neutrality” has been bounced around by Washington policymakers for more than a year. Yet most still have no idea what it means. Google’s gobbling of YouTube should make this critically important policy issue quite clear. For the phenomenal success of YouTube is testimony to the extraordinary value of a neutral Internet. If America lived in a world of real competition among broadband providers, there would be little reason to worry about such deals. But it does not live in that world. In the US, at least, broadband competition is dying. There are fewer competitors offering consumers broadband connectivity today than there were just six years ago. The median consumer has a choice between just two broadband providers. Four companies account for a majority of all consumer broadband; 10 account for 83 per cent of the market. This absence of competition puts new applications and content on the Internet at risk. For if network owners are permitted to set up Internet toll booths, imposing a special tax on providers of content and applications, then it will be the new innovators who bear the burden of these taxes most heavily. Network neutrality legislation alone will not solve those problems. But it will make sure that the one bright spot in the Internet economy -- the one place where vigorous competition continues -- will be protected. Congress needs to remove the incentive to keep broadband in its currently hobbled state. A thin rule of network neutrality could help do just that.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/a27bdb16-5ecd-11db-afac-0000779e2340,_i_rssPage=...
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* Unexpected Face Time for Network Neutrality
http://www.internetnews.com/commentary/article.php/3638686